Mate availability and unmarried parent relationships.
Theoretically, a shortage of males in a local marriage market may influence the formation, quality, and trajectory of unmarried parent relationships. To test these hypotheses, I combine city-level sex ratio data from the U.S. census with microdata on unmarried couples who recently had a child from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study. A shortage of men in a marriage market is associated with lower relationship quality for unmarried parents. Male shortages are associated with lower rates of marriage following a nonmarital birth, in part because of the mediating influence of relationship quality. A shortage of men is not significantly related to the economic quality of male, nonmarital childbearing partners.
Harknett
Kristen
K
Department of Sociology, 3718 Locust Walk, 271 McNeil Building, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. harknett@sas.upenn.edu
D000328:Adult; D019352:Censuses; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007086:Illegitimacy; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D012744:Sex Ratio; D014481:United States; D014505:Urban Population; D055815:Young Adult